Fun night, but then some ableism

[cosmolinguist]

The joys of poly: When your boyfriend double books himself for your visit, you can hang out with his other girlfriend instead.

This is what happened to me anyway, on Saturday. Jennie and I had a great time: poured some wine, put on the telly to a cooking program that was showing some Yorkshire puddings just about to go into the oven, so of course we had to watch it to find out what they did wrong ("Lots" was the verdict). And they made white chocolate cheesecake with amaretto-infused raspberries, which made us want amaretto-infused raspberries... And then somebody made dauphinoise potatoes, so we wanted dauphinoise potatoes...

And so our dinner menu was set: some kind of protein (we ended up with Quorn kievs), dauphinoise potatoes, and...cranachan for dessert because we bought cream for the potatoes anyway and whisky was cheaper than amaretto.

We went shopping for ingredients, came back and drunkenly cooked it all and it was great.

I found out I have a kitchen skill that neither Jennie nor Mat had! I'm so used to them knowing things and having a kitchen full of cool gadgets...but neither of them ever peels vegetables so I peeled the potatoes. Jennie was impressed at how quickly I managed to peel the potatoes and frankly so was I, considering the combination of being a person using a very sharp knife who's used to lots of tactile feedback while I'm doing this with a peeler, and the fact that I'd already had one glass of wine and when I say "glass" I mean "size of a fingerbowl"...

We watched most of a Miss Marple with Jennie doing her usual commenting on the costumes which I love because it tells me all kinds of things that I won't see or if I do won't know why they work or don't (like the way the servant was wearing a badly-fitting dress to show she was lower-class, while the posh lesbian she was standing next to (we were on a lookout for the lesbians too, as you always get those in Agatha Christie) was wearing perfectly tailored clothes.

Apparently the friend that James was out with told him that Interstellar was a better movie than 2001 because it was more intellectual, or something. So I was convinced we'd had the better evening.

Oh but then there was this commercial. I was busy counting up change to see if I had enough money for more wine at the time, so I was paying even less attention than usual, but I heard someone say "I lost my sight when I was fourteen..." so I looked up in what you might call professional interest and I must say I wasn't expecting a soap commercial but that's what I got (I think it was this one? but I went from not paying attention to it to yelling at it pretty quickly, so I'm not sure...oh yeah, and I'd already had some wine by this point).

Because I have a little cadre of blind friends on Twitter these days -- it's great; all women, too -- when I mentioned this there some of them said they'd talked about the same thing. The consensus was that none of us liked it: it "played the 'super sense' card," this misconception that blind people's other senses somehow improve to compensate for the lost one (they don't...we might learn to pay attention to them more, but we don't do anything that others couldn't, and it's not magic; it is huge in spoon costs). One said "It's not inclusive if they're fetishising us," and that's what this felt like: the person with special super senses was being consulted to give the ultimate verdict on what the best body wash is and she has spoken!

Jennie and Alisdair even questioned whether the woman was blind, which she is but I don't blame them because it seemed so false, not at all like what I'd expect blind people to talk about. Maybe it's just the people I know but when the blind people that I know get together (either IRL or on twitter), we talk about uncommunicative sighted people, inaccessible transport...and normal stuff, like our kids or hobbies or other people we know. I'm not saying this means no blind person thinks

My hands give me all the feedback that a sighted person would rely on their eyes for, so I navigate the world by touch. When I’m walking around a store I pick up every garment – I’m feeling the fabrics, the textures and the shapes. And colours aren’t about what they look like anymore. Blue became more about how my fingers feel running through water, and the colour green is more about the smell of freshly cut grass, and the feeling of it under bare feet.

But that just seems...like a sighted person's idea of what being blind is like? (That's not from the ad, but it's from "Molly's Story" on the Dove website, which I found when googling for the commercial.) It doesn't mean anything and it doesn't sound right; it sounds like marketing-speak. And even an authentically blind person can be given a daft script to read out. I mean, the pull quote is "I might have lost my sight, but I have not lost my ability to experience beauty in the world," ffs.

I think the last word on it from my new Twitter chum bigpurpleduck was "I mean, fair play to her making some money out of it. But I don't like this at all. Dove are using us, and peddling misconceptions."

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

How on earth do they manage to never peel *anything*?

Also:

> Interstellar was a better movie than 2001 because it was more intellectual

No. Definitely not. So much of Interstellar is just silly.

[miss_s_b]

Well, OK, we do peel oranges because you can do that with your hands. But vegetables? Carrots and parsnips and things just need a scrub. Mash is better and tastier made from unpeeled potatoes baked and scooped out than from peeled ones boiled. Chips, crisps and wedges are served skin-on.

We will possibly buy a peeler for the use of friends though. I was genuinely amazed at how fast and precise Holly was. I can do that chopping, but peeling is alien...

Also Floyding (cooking when tipsy and getting drunker as you go) is totally the best and most fun form of cooking.

[barakta]

You hit your Ballmer peak for knife peeling then!

Urgh re advert, just went to watch. The funny thing is, I've seen Molly's vlog before and it's about as naff as the advert, she's REALLY PLASTICKY FAKEY "I'm in an advert" in her personal posts too. I accidentally landed on her demoing screenreaders earlier and discovered you can link to a timepoint in youtube vids which is good cos she's so bloody boring, I realised the whole vid was 14 minutes long for what was 30 seconds of relevant to the point content. The rest was her yabbering on about how she has an iPhone and it's rose gold and she can't see that but she got told so she likes to know and utterly BORING content like that...

Anyway dunno about you Blindy McBlindfaces but we Deafie McDeafEarses are tactile in very specific ways. Deafies have vibrating smartwatches, phones and evil alarm clocks (mine is called Satan for a reason) and socially there's different touching rules. Blind people I've known aren't stroking fucking flowers (like the ad) they're locating things in space, using their thumbs to pour out boiling water cos they keep losing the bleepy gadget, and sometimes completely blind people I know have particular body languages which are about proprioception which I only notice cos I'm probably a bit more observant of body language than hearies (but I'm not super sighted!).

If we're not scroungers, tragic or inspiraaational, we're misconceived as having superpowers. Fuck em. Fuck em all back to the disablist narrative of historical fuckbaggery!

[cosmolinguist]

I love this comment, so many things about it made me smile or laugh.

When I saw in THAT "Molly's Story" thing I linked to that she's a ~motivational speaker~, I did worry she's like this all the time and has imbibed the cripspiration so that she can regurgitate it back to abled people who get to go home and feel better about themselves because at least they get to know what color their iPhones are, not like that poor little blind girl. I think some disabled people don't have anyone to tell them they're boring because that might hurt their little disabled feeeelings. Imagine living your whole life that way.

Blind people I've known aren't stroking fucking flowers (like the ad) they're locating things in space, using their thumbs to pour out boiling water cos they keep losing the bleepy gadget

Well quite! Being blind is about falling over kerbs and having people think you're on drugs because your body language is weird or your eyes look wrong! It's not about feeling the colors of things.

[barakta]

Well what other job do you do if you're disabled and unemployable elsewhere and have family who will do free PAing??? *sarcastic tone*

Molly Watt (deafblind) here in the UK does similar motivational bullcrap and while she's not boring, she's obnoxious instead (and her mum is worse). You also have to set up a charity in your own name and get all cosy with the corporate capitalists... And claim you're speaking for AAAALLL people with your impairment and if anyone criticises you, then it's cos they personally aren't resilient, hard working or doing it right.. *spits*

It's just not us tho, too fucking cantankerous and not the right kinda heteronormatively presentable!

I'm with you on being thought to be on drugs, slightly different reasons but similar disablist body norms!

[askygoneonfire]

Oh man, yes. That fecking advert has been pissing me right off ever since it appeared. So patronising and, as you say, fetishising. Beauty companies need to step off their corporate "social justice" platforms and go back to basics, or just shut up.